Cars are becoming soulless appliances

Our Take

Genius Loci's video is framed as a eulogy for the analog driving experience, but it stumbles into something bigger: the quiet normalization of license plate surveillance. When a channel about car culture and design starts talking about 'flocking' systems reading every plate, you know this technology has leaked far outside the policing-and-security bubble it was sold under. That's worth sitting with. Flock Safety's cameras weren't marketed to car enthusiasts, yet here they are, showing up as a symbol of how driving itself has become a tracked, data-generating activity rather than a private act of getting somewhere.

We'd push back gently on the framing that this is just about cars losing their soul. The real story is that your movements — where you go, when, how often — are being logged by networks of cameras you never consented to and mostly never see, regardless of what you're driving. A beat-up sedan and a brand-new EV get read the same way. The 'appliance' complaint is really a surveillance complaint wearing a nostalgia costume.

Credit to Genius Loci for putting ALPR surveillance in front of an audience that might not otherwise think about it. If this is the first time you're hearing the word 'flock' in this context, start by checking our camera map to see what's logging plates near you, then head to take action for ways to push back on your local deployment.